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The Perfect Couple
May 31, 2009


What is it about books and food that makes them fit so well together, especially in bed? I don’t know, but I do love the combination. When I am too tired to read but need a book to stare at before turning out the lights I often reach for a cookbook or two.

It’s fun reading cookbooks in bed. I imagine the meals I would create, pairing a soup with a salad or deciding what entrée would be best suited to the weather. How sophisticated should be meal be? Will we have a summer outdoor grilling party with friends, in which case, a marinated steak will be complemented by a chilled tomato soup and a mango/red onion/basil salad, or shall it be a formal sit-down dinner based on a color like white with a vichyssoise, a white salad based on the inner leaves of butter lettuce and white nectarines, and white asparagus. Sometimes, if I have a chili cookbook with me I will plan a “hot” meal from beginning to end for those few friends who also enjoy heat at any time and in any dish, even dessert (Habañero-Lime Cheesecake, anyone?).

Generally, though, the cookbooks I take to bed are not ordinary. In fact they would not be out of place on the coffee table where they could spend their life being admired. They tend to be beautiful, filled with exquisite photography, elegant typefaces, rich, creamy paper, and sensual covers. They entice, entrance and enthrall all at once. They are my temptresses of the night.

ImageLast week a friend handed me Peace Meals, a cookbook released by the Junior League of Houston late last year. It incorporates all the sensuality noted above. The cover image is not of food but displays a lovely white napkin fold over a black plate, culinary art in foreplay that looks good enough to eat. Two white satin ribbon bookmarks are sewn in for holding your place. Each chapter opening is highlighted by a list of the recipes, a menu sampler, glorious photography highlighting some of the foods, and tips. Then the recipes begin. 

This book has held me in its literary arms for the last two days, tempting me with things like Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burgers, Fresh Tomato Salad with Herbed Dressing, Cilantro Lime Shrimp, Poached Salmon in Thai Green Curry Broth, and White Gazpacho. Though this latter recipe seems unusually rich, and fatty, I am exceptionally fond of all forms of gazpacho so it will get a tryout; in case you’d like to sample it too, here it is):

3 cucumbers, peeled and roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups sour cream (suggested personal substitute: one Haas avocado for one cup sour cream)
3 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
Chopped tomatoes
Snipped fresh chives

Place the cucumbers, garlic and broth into a blender and purée. In a large bowl, combine the sour cream, vinegar, salt and white pepper. Add the cucumber mixture to the sour cream mixture and stir well. Chill for several hours. Top each serving with chopped tomatoes and chives. Serve chilled.

I must admit, however, the most tempting thing in the entire book—it caught my eye within one minute of opening the pages—is not nearly as nutritious as most of the above recipes. It is, however, to die for if you can handle your waistline expanding by several inches just by reading the recipe. Drinking more than one will, I have no doubt, result in a hangover the size of Houston. You will also probably want to avoid getting behind the wheel of a car for, oh, at least four days. But if you like chocolate go for it:

Chocolate Martini
White chocolate shavings, finely chopped
Milk chocolate shavings, finely chopped
Orange wedges
1 ounce chocolate liqueur
1 ounce white chocolate liqueur
1 ounce vanilla vodka
1 ounce chocolate vodka
1 ounce creme de cacao

Combine the chocolate shavings in a shallow dish. Wet the rims of chilled martini glasses with an orange wedge and dip in the chocolate shavings to coat. Pour the chocolate liqueur and remaining ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until cold and strain into the prepared glasses.

Having spent the last two nights in my arms, Peace Meals is now back on its shelf. It served its purpose, to entertain and enthrall without demanding anything from me other than dreams about its dishes. When I speak of books and food being the perfect couple, I often mean reading while eating—the subject of another essay—but in this context I am referring to the luxury of dining in books in bed. By the time I turn the lights off, I feel satiated, content. But the best part of all? No dishes to wash. 

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Only one festival is coming up this week, but it’s a goodie. Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago will take place on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7. This festival is celebrating its twenty-fifth year properly with 119 events for children and adults presented on a total of eleven stages during both days. Those include poetry readings, author readings and conversations, stage performances, panel presentations, cooking demonstrations, writing workshops, an award ceremony for Neil Gaiman—and more than 150 exhibitors. If you are anywhere in or near the area, don’t miss this book festival.

The Pub House:
RDR Books is celebrating its fifteenth year in business in 2009, and it certainly is worthy of a celebration. They publish widely, but not indiscriminately, allowing them to focus on quality in travel literature (especially the I Should Have Stayed Home series), Judaica, history, biography, education, sports, and children’s literature. Among their most current offerings is Waterwalk, a coming of age story within a travel narrative of a father and son’s journey to retrace the historic 1673 route of French explorers Marquette and Joliet from the Lake Michigan shore to the Mississippi River. Casting About in the Reel World is a collection of the adventures of a dedicated fly fisherman (and social anthropologist) who has pursued his passion over a quarter century on five continents and many islands. Here, There are No Sarahs is the powerful narrative of Sonia Shainwald who, when German soldiers invaded her native Poland on their way to Russia in World War II, learned how to make war without training, equipment, food or other necessities.
 
Of Interest:
How Books Got Their Titles is the name of a blog that captured my attention simply because of . . . its title. Blogger Gary Dexter likes to explore the history behind unique titles. He has specific criteria for books’ inclusion, but even with that he finds a lot of books—and fascinating history. In a recent post on Der Schweizerische Robinson (Swiss Family Robinson), the German novel about a pious Swiss family shipwrecked on an island that first published in 1812, he mentions that the family is never named in the novel. Rather, the title refers to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which was published in 1719. The word-name had been hijacked by eighteenth-century European publishing until it came to mean an adventure tale.

But Dexter is not content to stick with one genre or one type of book, His archived posts range from the New Testament to Fahrenheit 451. If you enjoy knowing about books as books (the art of books) this is definitely one blog to add to your daily reading.

This Week . . .
the venerable New Yorker has begun offering Book Daily: Book Samples for Book Lovers through its cartoons arm, ArcaMax. As the Internet continues to provide new and increasingly popular avenues of communication between readers and publishers, one of the best of those is this site where readers can browse more than 60,000 books and read first chapters. There is no cost and no obligation, but if you want to create a “sample shelf” of first chapters to be emailed to you, you will need to create an account.

The purpose of Book Daily, according to ArcaMax Publishing CEO Scott Wolf, is to “create a way for readers to sample books before buying them.” You can browse by subcategory in both fiction and nonfiction or search for specific books using their titles, authors, or ISBNs. And you can also sign up for genre newsletters to learn about the newest books in your favorite categories. This is as close to physical bookstore browsing as the Internet is likely to get, and it is worth signing up.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren

 

 

 
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